Tributes were paid to footballer Emiliano Sala on Saturday at a special memorial in his home region of Santa Fe, Argentina.

The body of the 28-year old, who died in a plane crash last month, was laid out in a gymnasium in the town where he grew up so friends and family could pay their last respects.

A single-engine plane carrying Sala from his French club Nantes to his new team Cardiff City crashed on Jan. 21 in the English Channel, before he could make his debut for the Premier League side.

Wreckage...

The body of footballer Emiliano Sala arrived in Argentina on Friday, ahead of this weekend's wake and burial in his home town.

TV pictures showed a van carrying the body being slowly escorted out of the Buenos Aires airport by police vehicles.

The body is being driven to Progreso, around 538 kilometres (334 miles) northwest of the capital Buenos Aires, for a vigil and wake.

Sala, 28, had been flying from his previous club Nantes in western France to Wales on Jan. 21 with pilot David Ibbotson...

Chile joined three neighboring South American countries in a bid to host the 2030 soccer World Cup, according to a joint statement from their governments released on Thursday.

The bid, which previously included only Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, is up against bids from England, and another bid from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.

The 2030 World Cup will mark the centennial of soccer's most important championship, with the first being held in Uruguay in 1930. 

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Almost 90 years after men's soccer turned professional in Argentina, the women's game is still being played by amateur athletes who get little to no money for their work on the field.

Macarena Sanchez wants to change that -- now.

The 27-year-old Sanchez is taking legal action against her club and the Argentina Football Association in an effort to gain professional status. The case could set a precedent in a nation that is home to Lionel Messi and some of the world's...

Lionel Messi will return to the Argentina national team for their March friendlies against Venezuela and Czech Republic, sources told ESPN Argentina, ending his self-imposed exile from the squad.

Barcelona's Messi has not featured for Argentina since captaining them at the World Cup, where they were knocked out by winners France.

Argentina take on Venezuela in Madrid on March 22 and the Czech Republic in Dresden, Germany, four days later, with the friendlies part of their preparations for the Copa...